Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Waitakere United will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 23 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Waitakere United this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
At 28 the improving is meant to be over. It is not: 3 points better than the mark taken at the start of the year, which is the sort of thing that happens to players who take the boring parts of the job seriously.
It is the rarest sequence in football: supporters ask for something, and the club goes and does it. $62.0K for Charles Phillips, and for one week nobody is complaining about anything.
Position 3, 24 points, and the result everyone checks first is now theirs. The word is still not being said around the ground, which is how you know everyone is thinking it.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Dane Boxall and Waitakere United agree another 4 years.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 23 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Dane Boxall is 22, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Squad14 Jun 2027
Matt Bell has improved at 29, which nobody expected
Careers are supposed to plateau and then decline, and the players who ignore that are always the ones who were listening on the training ground. 3 points of it, over months, at an age where the direction normally only goes one way.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Chris Van Hattum provided it, and the 8.81 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
A shoot-out is remembered by its ending, and this one ends with Dane Boxall: 1 kept out, and a set of supporters who will describe every one of them for the next twenty years.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Waitakere United have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Cameron Tuiloma is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
The offer from Team Wellington for Matt Bell was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
Position 3, 21 points, and the result everyone checks first is now theirs. The word is still not being said around the ground, which is how you know everyone is thinking it.
An individual honour is a strange thing in a team game, and the best of them are never argued with. He has had the sort of year that ends with his name being read out, and Waitakere United have had the benefit of it.
Cameron Tuiloma was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
“I did not go to Team Wellington to sit and watch. I want to come back to Waitakere United and fight for my place.” 1 appearances in 21 matches say the rest.
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Dane Boxall is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
Two goals and a mark of 8.84 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
3 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
Nobody makes a documentary about a hamstring and everybody in the game fears one. Waitakere United will be careful with the return date, because the second one is always worse than the first.
Tim Smith was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
3 on the bounce on the road for Waitakere United. The coaches leave early, arrive at unlovely grounds in the dark, and keep coming home with three points.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Waitakere United, and it is not being withdrawn.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Liberato Just and Waitakere United agree another 3 years.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Waitakere United this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“I watch every Waitakere United game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Team Wellington runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
There is exactly one of these per career and it does not usually go like this. 1 on the scoresheet, 8.08 beside the name, and a crowd that had never seen him before chanting it by the end.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Cameron Tuiloma is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Waitakere United this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
At 16 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
Player ratings23 Nov 2026
Sam De Vries was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.26. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
The words a physio says slowly. 25 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 22 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Cameron Tuiloma and Waitakere United agree another 3 years.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Waitakere United can pretend not to have heard.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Dane Boxall is 22, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Liberato Just has improved at 25, which nobody expected
Careers are supposed to plateau and then decline, and the players who ignore that are always the ones who were listening on the training ground. 3 points of it, over months, at an age where the direction normally only goes one way.
In brief
SquadWords at Waitakere United training over how hard people work